Israel's Foreign Minister Cuts Ties With EU Foreign Policy Chief Over Israel-Apartheid Comparison

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar announced on Thursday that he is severing all contacts with Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s high representative for foreign and security policy, after reports that she compared Israel to apartheid-era South Africa during a visit to Mexico. Sa'ar said Kallas has long acted, in his words, “obsessively and disgracefully unfair” toward Israel.

According to Euractiv, Kallas held a series of closed-door meetings with Mexican officials during a senior EU delegation visit to Mexico City. Diplomats and others present said she referred to her visit last year to South Africa and the apartheid museum in Johannesburg and used those impressions to compare Israel’s treatment of Palestinians with racial segregation policy.

Sa'ar thanked European lawmakers who condemned the remarks, but said Kallas had offered no denial, response, or explanation. “Therefore, as the foreign minister of the State of Israel, I have no choice but to cut off all contact with Ms. Kallas until she retracts the blood libel she leveled against the only Jewish state, which is also the only democracy in the Middle East,” he said.

The article notes that apartheid comparisons are central to South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and that the claim is deeply divisive inside the EU, with Spain and Ireland having shown more openness to such criticism while France and Germany reject it. It also recalls a previous clash between Sa'ar and Kallas over a false post she made claiming Hezbollah had agreed to disarm, which she later edited.

The move comes amid broader European pressure on Israel, including a French entry ban on Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and EU discussions over a new sanctions package. Kallas’s office did not respond to the report.